missmediajunkie

"Monsters University" is nearly gone from theaters, nobody wanted to see "Turbo," and I was not going to pay full price for tickets to "Planes" or "Smurfs 2." So what option did that leave me for taking the younger cousins out to see a cartoon feature this weekend? "Despicable Me 2."

I want to spend this post looking at the movie's mixed messages about parenthood and family, some of which are a little troubling. This is not a proper review of the movie, but I'll give you a short, spoiler-free one up front. I liked the original, and the sequel is a clear step down, pushing Gru (Steve Carrell) and his girls into a formula rom-com, that occasionally remembers the main characters are supposed to be foiling a mysterious villain and saving the world. Fortunately the little yellow minions get a lot of screen time, and they're plenty of fun. I'm glad they'll be ditching Gru entirely for their own movie in the near future. All in all, "Despicable Me 2" is a pretty slapdash, though well-intentioned venture, and I couldn't help spending most of the running time thinking of ways that PIXAR or Dreamworks could have done the whole thing better. But the kids liked it, so I certainly feel no animosity toward the movie's existence.

Spoilers ahead.

Now let's talk about motherhood. I was kind of tickled at first to discover that "Despicable Me 2" really is a romantic-comedy through and through. Gru is partnered up with secret agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) to bring down a villain they have tracked down to a local mall. Gru and Lucy connect, Gru finally works up the courage to ask her out, and at the end of the movie we see them get married, and Lucy happily become the girls' new mother. The whole movie is pushing the superiority of the traditional nuclear family pretty hard. Many children's films are guilty of this, but in "Despicable Me 2," it's especially obvious because of how simple and formulaic the plotting is. At one point Lucy, on her way to a new job in Australia, has the sudden epiphany that she's in love with Gru. She's so smitten that jumps out of the airplane she's in mid-flight, shouting "I choose Gru!" and hang-glides her way back to where she left him. This happens, despite Lucy showing no real romantic interest for Gru up until that point, and barely meeting his adopted daughters Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Elsie Fisher).

Some of this can be chalked up to bad plotting and bad storytelling, but it's still telling that the movie purposely skips over all the complicated parts that happen in real life. It doesn't bother to ask the most fundamental questions. Does Lucy want to be a mother? Will becoming one impact her plans to be a great secret agent, a job she's very, very passionate about? Do the girls get along with her? Do they mind that she occupies so much of Gru's attention? Does the prospect of a new mother bring up any issues they might have with losing their birth parents? All of these questions might have been brought up and addressed offscreen - the movie suggests that the courtship is not a quick one - but expanding a family is not a matter to be taken lightly, and the movie may be giving the wrong impression to younger viewers. "Despicable Me 2" simply isn't ready to deal with something so emotionally complicated, so it gives us the perfect fairy-tale rom-com version. Lucy is accepted immediately by the girls, and expresses no qualms about changing her whole life to become part of Gru's. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.

Another issue I've seen others bring up is that the ease of Lucy's integration into the family makes one-parent households seem inferior. I can see this, as single mothers are pretty common in fiction, but single fathers get married off as quickly as possible. Still, I think this is mitigated to some extent by the movie showing that Gru is an excellent single dad. He's willing to do just about anything to make the girls happy, including dressing up as a fairy princess for Agnes's birthday party. However, he's not willing to pursue women simply to find a mother for the girls. This is made clear by the running subplot involving a nosy neighbor, Jillian (Nasim Pedrad), who keeps trying to set Gru up on terrible dates. As for the girls, the older two don't express any interest in having a mother, though Margo tries to set Gru up for online dating. It's only the youngest, Agnes, after being given the contrived assignment to deliver a Mother's Day speech (by the most insensitive teacher ever), who awkwardly points out that she doesn't have a Mom, and then latches on to Lucy at first sight.

But this is just a kids' cartoon, you might say. It's all a fantasy. Yes, but that didn't stop "Brave" from tackling thorny mother-daughter issues, or "Incredibles" from addressing the struggles of being special, or "Up" from giving us a heartrending picture of loss and regret. "Despicable Me 2" could have been so much more meaningful and more interesting if it had just tried a little harder and took itself more seriously. I wouldn't say that its messages rise to the level of being bad or harmful in any way, nothing that a hundred other pieces of media haven't done in the past, but it because it tries to play it safe, it does end up perpetuating some worrisome ideas.

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The trailer for Spike Jonze's new film "Her" was recently released, his first feature since "Where the Wild Things Are" in 2009. However, Jonze has been busy during the break, directing four different shorts that can be found online without much effort, and about the same number of music videos. I want to focus on the shorts, however, as shorts are too often unfairly overlooked and unloved entries in a director's filmography. Many consider them lesser works, or simply stepping stones to full features, and Jonze is a fairly rare director who has continued to produce short films after helming many successful features. So let's take a look at Spike Jonze's recent shorts, one by one, in chronological order:

"We Were Once a Fairytale" (2009) - Made before "Where the Wild Things Are," though its official release was delayed until after "Wild Things" premiered. Discussions for Jonze to direct the music video for Kanye West's "See You in My Nightmares" evolved into this eleven-minute short film. See Kanye as you've never seen him before, playing himself as a drunken lout in a nightclub, who is not having one of the better nights of his life. He repels women, makes a nuisance of himself, instigates a fight, and finally has to face the consequences - a bizarre finale involving puppets, rose petals, and multiple suicides. This is more of a oddball experimental piece than anything else, with a few bits of interesting imagery, but not much else to recommend it.

"I'm Here" (2010) - Wikipedia tells me this thirty-minute short was funded by and is a promotion for Absolut Vodka, which I didn't pick up on at all. Instead, it feels like a much more personal piece, a gentle romance between two robots who live in a version of Los Angeles where robots and human coexist side by side. Lonely robot Sheldon (Andrew Garfield), our protagonist, has a beige, blocky computer tower of a head, with expressive eyes and mouth rendered with the help of CGI animation. The robots have mechanical bodies, but dress in normal clothes, hold normal jobs, and seem to live and behave and feel the full gamut of emotions in the same way that humans do. The female robots, with oval heads and slimmer limbs, even have hair. Sheldon meets and falls in love with a dreamy robot artist named Francesca (Sienna Guillory), and their relationship proceeds much in the same way that human relationships do. However, there are certain advantages to being a robot in love, as Sheldon discovers when unexpected tragedy strikes. It's the worldbuilding here that is the most impressive, with its use of deliberately dated-looking materials to build the robots, and the whimsy of the dialogue and the interactions. It's all a little on the precious side, and it came to no surprise to me what the main inspiration for the film turned out to be, but I liked this one. It's exactly the kind of sentimental, humane approach that I'd expect Jonze to take to this kind of material, and provides the best hints of what "Her" is probably going to look like.

"Scenes From the Suburbs" (2011) - Jonze's collaboration with the band Arcade Fire, for their recent album "The Suburbs." There's very little fantasy or whimsy here, in a thirty-minute short about a group of teenagers living in a small town. We primarily follow two boys, Kyle (Sam Dillon) and his best friend Winter (Paul Pluymen), over the course of an eventful summer. Initially their lives seem simple and untroubled, but the growing presence of armed and hooded members of a sinister militia force in their town suggests something is seriously amiss. The short is an allegory for the loss of innocence, and how we lose the ones we love, built from nostalgic memories of adolescence, and real-world grown-up fears of oppression and violence. This is my favorite of the four shorts for its ability to evoke very painful emotions. Jonze shows us only a few pieces of the characters' lives, but it's enough to understand how the distances form and the alienation sets in between the two boys. Some of the most important scenes are only seen in quickly-cut, fragmentary glimpses, interspersed throughout the short. A six-minute music video version of the short was also produced, containing some different material, so the two versions of "Suburbs" complement each other. Finally, take note that Arcade Fire will be scoring "Her" for Jonze.

"Mourir Auprès De Toi (To Die By Your Side)" (2011) - A quick six-minute animated love story, between characters from the covers of colorful tomes in a live action bookstore. Our hero is a felt skeleton who leaves the cover of "Macbeth" to woo the fair damsel who graces the cover of "Dracula." Alas, he is intercepted on his journey by a tragic encounter with the whale from "Moby Dick." The concept is straight out of the old Warner Bros shorts, like "Have You Got Any Castles?" except far more macabre, and in the closing moments, far more raunchy. The execution is a lot of fun, though, and this is another great example of Jonze mixing mediums and putting his own mark on an old, established, formula.
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If you thought that this summer was crowded with expensive blockbuster movies, wait until you see what's coming up in 2015. I alluded to this a little in my previous posts on the upcoming movies I've been anticipating, but I don't think I got across the sheer number of major studio franchise films that are coming our way. Here's the current list of announced projects slated for 2015 release dates, with the most notable titles in bold:

Sequels

Avatar 2
Independence Day 2
Finding Dory (Finding Nemo 2)
The Batman and Superman Movie (Let's count this as Man of Steel 2)
The Adventures of Tintin 2
The Avengers 2
Hotel Transylvania 2
Prometheus 2
Snow White and the Huntsman 2
Inferno (The Da Vinci Code 3)
Kung-Fu Panda 3
The Smurfs 3
Alvin & the Chipmunks 4
Mockingjay Part 2 (The Hunger Games 4)
Jurassic Park 4
Bourne 5
Mission: Impossible 5
Pirates of the Caribbean 5
Die Hard 6
Star Wars Episode 7
James Bond 24

Reboots

Fantastic Four
Terminator

Spinoffs

The Penguins of Madagascar
Ant-Man (Marvel Universe film)

Originals

Assassin's Creed
Inside Out (new PIXAR film)

We're probably going to see some of these movies delayed or pushed back to 2016, which is normal. And many of these titles are going to be holiday or spring releases. However, we're still looking at a summer 2015 schedule that is going to be jammed with potentially massive films. 2013 is turning out to be a summer of what some have dubbed blockbuster fatigue, where audiences have been subjected to so many of these expensive event films week after week, they've had enough. As a result, we've had a string of expensive flops over the past few weeks. In 2015, we're inevitably going to see some big titles flop because there simply isn't going to be enough room for them all to grab the audience's interest long enough to make a profit. Scheduling is going to be a life-or-death matter, and notably we've got a lot of big titles like "Star Wars" and "Superman" still missing from the schedule, and a lot of prime real estate in May not staked out.

Some of the tried and true franchises that have hung in there for years and years, delivering profits, are going to find themselves going bust. I suspect that this may be the end of the line for such dependable moneymakers as "Bourne," "Pirates," and maybe even the old "Terminator" franchise. There are bound to be some dramatic head-to-heads. "Asassin's Creed" is currently positioned against an original PIXAR movie in June, for example, while the next "Bond Movie" is up against "Ant-Man" in November. Remember that with theater prices continuing to go up, there are fewer audience members to go around and people are getting picker about what they want to see. The studios are going to have to do a lot more work to convince us of the appeal of a fourth "Alvin & the Chipmunks" movie, or why we should take a chance on "Fantastic Four." Right now, there aren't that many movies I think are guaranteed to be hits. After "Dory," "Bond," "Star Wars," and "Avengers," it all gets iffy pretty quick.

While the studios are probably going to lose out from the increased competition, this will be good for theater owners who are likely to see more turnout overall thanks to the increase in big titles. Whether this is good for the consumers depends on what kind of a movie fan you are. If you're a fan of these big blockbuster films, particularly anything involving CGI cartoons or superheroes, you'll be spoiled for choice. If you're not, you may have fewer options because the big franchise movies have been crowding smaller films out of the theaters. Personally, I'd consider paying to watch about half of the films I listed in theaters just based on their pedigrees, but I'd only prioritize and make actual efforts to see five of them. Movie reviewers may see their influence grow too, as audience members become more cautious about which movies are worth investing their time and money in.

There have been some significant discussions about the possibility that 2015 may be the tipping point for the current blockbuster model of making studio movies. Steven Spielberg's predictions of more big blockbuster bombs potentially endangering the whole system seem likelier than ever, and 2015 looks like a potential powder keg from that perspective. Still, 2015 is still two years away, and a lot could change in that time. Maybe we'll see "Star Wars" or some of the other big contenders delayed. Maybe the global box office will grow big enough to sustain more of these big films.

Or maybe not. Looking over the list of 2015 hopefuls, I can't help already feeling exhausted. There are so many big movies crowded on that schedule, with so many big names and big characters, it's hard to think of any of them as a special event. The event films just look like the new normal.
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I know, I know - it's no use dwelling on would'ves and should'ves and could'ves. However, the timing and circumstances just haven't been right to get me back to San Diego Comic-Con, and considering how exponentially more difficult it has become to get tickets and arrange accommodations for the event, I don't think I'm going back any time soon.

Still, it's fun to fantasize about these things. I worked out a loose schedule of events for myself, as if I had gone to Comic-Con this weekend, and I thought I'd share it with you. First thing you'l notice is that I've purposefully avoided most of the big panels for movies and television shows. The reality is that most of these panels are going to find their way online, and most of the exclusive film clips and bits of marketing will emerge into the public's view all too soon. There were a couple of panels that I waited for hours to see live, and ended up with such poor seats that I would have been better off just waiting to watch them on Youtube. Second thing you'll notice is that the schedule is physically impossible to accomplish, because some of the panels are back to back and everything at Comic-Con has a line to get in. But this is my fantasy schedule, so we'll dispense with such inconvenient details.

So which panels caught my eye this year?

Thursday, July 18th

3:30PM - TV Guide Magazine Celebrates The X-Files' 20th Anniversary: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are going to be there, plus series creator Chris Carter, plus many of the writers including Vince Gilligan, the Morgan brothers, and James Wong. This has all the earmarks of a real event. More importantly, there's going to be a giant crowd of "X-files" fans in attendance, and as "The X-files" was one of my first major fandoms, it would be a chance to geek out among my own kind.

4:30PM - Geeks Get Published-and Paid!: This is relevant to my interests! I may not want to write books right now, but maybe someday in the future I might manage to cobble something together that people would actually pay to read. And the biggest hurdles are always how get published, find an agent, etc. This panel purports to have the answers, and is using geek authors as presenters.

7:15PM - A New Generation of Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation: As much as I love what these guys have produced and what they stand for, I've never been to a Spike and Mike screening before and I would gladly take the chance to remedy that. Alternately, the "Tournament of Nerds Show" running at the same time sounds fun.

8:30PM - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Sing-Along: I didn't even like "Dr. Horrible" all that much, but a sing-along screening sounds like a blast.

Friday

10:30AM - Writing for TV: From First Draft to Getting Staffed: I love behind the scenes stuff, and I love hearing how writers and artists work. And frankly, I will take any tips on writing that I can get. So this kind of panel has way more interest for me that the kind where the actors show up with preview clips. Alternates: "Inside The Big Bang Theory Writers' Room," and "The Art of the Cliffhanger."

12:15PM - Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World: Since places for meta discussion of fandom have been pretty scarce, this sounds like an opportunity for a good conversation.

3:00PM - U.S. Pop Culture Abroad: Among other things, they promise to address what makes an American property successful overseas, and that's a question that has a lot of different ramifications for all corners of media. The panelists here look especially promising, including people looking at the question from a business as well as a creative perspective.

4:00PM - ASIFA-Hollywood's State of the Industry: ASIFA is the International Animated Film Society, the non-profit group that puts on the Annies every year, runs outreach programs, and maintains its own archives. And they're always great for an insider's take on what's going on in animation. Alternate: "Motion Picture and Television Illustrators of the Art Directors Guild."

5:45PM - Making Roger Rabbit: 25th Anniversary: There are a lot of tempting things going on in the 5PM and 6PM hours, but Disney geek that I am, I cannot pass up an opportunity to see animators Andreas Deja and James Baxter and producer Don Hahn reminisce about one of my favorite Renaissance Disney films. Alternate: "International Association of Media Tie-in Writers: Scribe Awards," because tie-ins are fascinating and I think I've read the work of every author listed to appear.

7:45PM - Your Opinion Sucks! Rotten Tomatoes Critics vs. Fans: A movie critics' panel! Where I may have the chance to vent my spleen at Ben Lyons! Yes! Alternates: "Worst Cartoons Ever!" for the chance to meet animation historian Jerry Beck, and "Drew Struzan: The Man Behind the Poster." The magic words are "poster giveaway."

Saturday

10:00AM - Comic-Con How-To: Writing Your Superhero Novel - I didn't realize there was such a thing as a superhero novel, outside of tie-ins, but now I'm curious to know more. And as previously established, I'll take any writing pointers I can get.

2:00PM - Art Lessons from Great Illustrators: Arthur Rackham: I love Arthur Rackham's work. I have a print of one of his watercolors hanging in my house right now, and this sounds like a great little art lecture to sit through.

3:15PM - Vertigo: The Sandman 25th Anniversary and Beyond! Neil Gaiman is always a great speaker to see and I'm a big "Sandman" fan. Gaiman and Vertigo have promised new "Sandman" content in the future, and I'd love to get an early peek. Alternate: Pinky and the Brain 20th Anniversary Voice Reunion, because I still spontaneously hum their theme song regularly.

4:30PM - Poppin' Some Tags: There are a couple of panels devoted to Hollywood costume designers, which makes sense considering the highly visible cosplay element at the con. This is the one that fits best into my schedule. Again, I have no experience with costuming, but I love hearing professional artists talking about their work. And the panel is moderated by Ron Perlman too.

6:00PM - Dissecting Brands: How Do You Know What Makes Batman Batman? Another panel that sounds like it could provide a potentially fascinating conversation, as branding has become a major part of how the industry functions. Notably, the a VP of IP Development from Hasbro is one of the four panelists. Alternates: Batman: The Animated Series Turns 21 and Financing Your Dream: Kickstarter Fundraising

7:30PM - Angry Asian Media Makers: I used to be a regular reader of the Angry Asian Guy blog, and still do my best to ceck in every now and again. So I feel it would be proper to show a little solidarity with my fellow Asian-American geeks. Alternate: ComiKev 2013: Kevin Smith Uses His Mouth on You in Hall H, because who doesn't love Kevin Smith in Comic-Con mode.

Sunday

11:15AM - Breaking Bad: As we go into Sunday, the programming gets more kid-oriented, so the big panels start getting more attractive. "Breaking Bad" is the one big show that I've been looking forward to the most all year, and I'd love a preview.

12:30PM - BBC America's Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: This is the kind of panel that's sure to be so packed, I'd be better off watching at home. But then, I'd miss all the fans, and the "Doctor Who" fans are a legendary bunch that are best experienced in person. Plus, I'm honestly curious as to how they're going to spin Matt Smith's imminenet departure.

2:00PM - 25 Years of the Disney Afternoon: The Continuing Legacy: As a child of the 80s and 90s and a Disney fan, a "Disney Afternoon" panel is irresistable. The "Disney Afternoon" programming has become one of those obscure corners of Disneyana now, barely acknowledged by official channels. And that's probably why the panel is taking place at Comic-Con an not the D23 convention. Alternate: Community: Celebrating the Fans

3:00PM - History of Disney Pins: The Tradition of Disney Pin Trading and Collecting: Most of the toy and collectors' panels don't have much appeal to me, but I ran into some of these pin-trading guys during my last trip to Disneyland, and I am curious as to what the culture is all about.

4:00PM - Everything You Wanted to Know About Live Action Role Playing... But Were Too Embarrassed to Ask: I think that title is self-explanatory. And bonus points for the Woody Allen reference. Alternate: Full-Time Creative Work on a Part-Time Schedule

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This Sunday marks the fifth season finale of Adult Swim's "The Venture Bros." after a quick season comprised of only eight episodes. Well, and the Halloween special that aired last year and the premiere was an hour long, but still, it all went by awfully quick. Considering we had to wait well over two years for the show's return, it's hard not to want more. Just getting to spend more time with these characters these past few weeks has been great, and I didn't realize how much I'd missed them. I debated waiting until after the finale had aired to write this post, but there's been plenty going on this season to talk about. So spoilers ahead!

The major new character of this season (okay, technically introduced in the first season, but still) has been Augustus St. Could, the new arch-nemesis of Billy Quizboy. He's popped up in three episodes so far, and I'm not sold on him. He's an uber-fanboy, who has dedicated his life to proving his superiority over everyone else in the most odious and annoying fashion possible. He's got potential, and I trust Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer are going somewhere interesting with this guy, but I'd rather be spending more time with the Monarchs or Phantom Limb. Of course, this is how I felt about any number of "Venture" characters who I now consider indispensable, including Billy and Pete, Sgt. Hatred, and even Dermott's kinda growing on me. At this point I know better than to draw conclusions too quickly.

The screwed up Venture clan has been a little less screwed up this year, for the most part. Sure, Doc enlists an army of interns as cheap labor at Venture Industries at the start of the year, who all end up dead or horrible mutants, but he's treating his kids noticeably better. Hank and Dean are slowly but surely growing up. Hank had his rebellious phase earlier, and has now mellowed out into a more positive go-getter, while Dean has gone broody and cynical after losing Triana, but seems to be growing a spine too. Sgt Hatred's latest personal challenge is a set of gargantuan mammaries, thanks to a bad drug interaction, but otherwise his emotional problems have been kept in check. Meanwhile, Brock has been off fighting with the O.S.I., but is still a regular presence on the show, since he still crosses paths with the Ventures pretty often.

We still don't know who killed Henchman 21, we still don't know who the boys' mother is, and we still don't know why The Monarch hates Dr. Venture so much. But it doesn't matter. The current round of maneuverings between O.S.I. and the Guild and a new bunch of baddies called the Investors are only a distraction. The real meat of "The Venture Bros." has always been about the Ventures and their friends (and their enemies) dealing with the fact that they may technically be allowed to append "super" as a prefix to their job titles, but it doesn't mean that they're any good at what they've chosen to do, or that they'll ever live up to the ideals of heroism or villainy set by their predecessors, or that success at the game is going to solve any of their numerous personal problems. In the end, the best they can do is to just roll with the punches, like Henchman 24.

As always, I love the little details of the "Venture" universe. The insane themed characters. (Tank Top?) The digressions into ancient pop culture references (Teddy Ruxpin?!). The call backs and in-jokes that keep building and building over time. The utterly twisted logic that drives so many of the characters. The way they can take the shallowest concepts, and just keep mining more and more good material from them. I have no idea how Shore Leave is still as entertaining as he is, but he's carved out a nice little niche for himself as one of Brock's O.S.I. buddies and long ago transcended his one-note gay joke origins. The unexpected depth and complexity of this series still catches me off guard sometimes. It's one of the best written shows on television, animated or otherwise. And the animation? Consistently fantastic.

It looks like another two years at least until the next season of "Venture Bros.," which has already been promised by Cartoon Network and the creators. At this point the show has been running for ten years, and it's come a long way in that time. I'm sure they could go on indefinitely, but I'm getting to the point where I really want to see a conclusion. There's nothing specific that I'm hoping for, because this is a show that defies conventional plotting, but I'd just like to know that there will be a deliberate end point somewhere down the line. I've grown awfully attached to these characters over the years, and hope they get the chance to go out right.

In... a few more seasons? Pretty please?
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Animated film are back on top at the box office. "The Croods" and "Monsters University" have cracked the top ten for the year so far, and "Despicable Me 2" is expected to join them soon. Quite a few of this year's offerings are franchise films, proportionally more than you tend to see in most other genres. It's easy to see why. Animated films are among the most costly and risky to produce. Since franchises have become the norm, we've seen plenty of animated sequels, prequels, midquels, and spinoffs. However, I've noticed that one trick that animation studios can't seem to pull off is an "Amazing Spider-man" style reboot.

"Shrek," for instance, has been a solid performer for Dreamworks since the first film in 2001, spawning three sequels, a spin-off, a couple of television specials, related shorts, theme park attractions, a musical, and loads of merchandising and tie-ins. It bears a lot of the responsibility for what the current landscape of animated CGI films looks like. However, since "Shrek Forever After" in 2010, nobody has been talking about continuing the "Shrek" movies. A "Puss in Boots" sequel is still technically in development, but that seems increasingly unlikely as time goes on. Dreamworks has its schedule for animated films mapped out until the end of 2016, and there's no sign of anything Shrek-related. The franchise, by all indications, seems to have run its course for the time being. But in a couple of years, wouldn't it make sense from a business perspective to reboot "Shrek" from the beginning?

We know you can reboot animated characters, particularly the older ones. There's still a steady stream of family movies made to star CGI updates of characters who were introduced in 2D traditional animation. There's a "Smurfs" sequel coming this summer, and "Peabody and Mr. Sherman" will arrive in digital form next year. The old Disney and Warners stars like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny have been brought back endless times in all kinds of different projects, to try and keep them in the public consciousness. Bugs and friends currently star in "The Looney Tunes Show," running on Cartoon Network since 2011. Mickey Mouse is appearing in a new series of shorts and a titular cartoon series this year, aimed at returning him to his old anarchic, slapstick roots. All these new versions have been accompanied by redesigns, reinterpretations, changes in medium, and changes in technology, but they're still unmistakably supposed to be the same characters we knew decades ago.

And yet, animated features have almost never been rebooted. Disney is pushing ahead on a live action "Cinderella" and its second live action "Jungle Book" rather than of going back to the literal drawing boards. There's no reason why they couldn't make animated reboots of their most famous movie properties to reflect more modern tastes. I'm sure many of them would be very successful. On the other hand, there's something timeless about animation that means these films have a remarkable longevity that the superhero movies and the horror movies don't. Old television shows and the old theatrical shorts are more inaccessible and tend to expire more quickly, but animated movies can stay in circulation indefinitely. Multiple generations grew up on the Disney classics and their images are still responsible for selling tons of merchandise each year. Today's kids may not watch the old "Smurfs" cartoons or Daffy Duck shorts, but they're still watching "Peter Pan" and "The Jungle Book." So I suspect that if Dreamworks ever made a new, rebooted "Shrek," starting all the way back at the start of his story, it would end up competing with the old one for people's attention.

Also, I don't think that reboots of animated characters work as well as live action ones fundamentally. Franchises have so much draw because they offer familiarity. If you go to a Superman movie, you know to expect a superhero who can fly and has super strength and disguises himself as an ordinary person. If you go to a Sherlock Holmes movie, you get a detective story set in Victorian London. The details can be different, and the actors involved can give their own takes on the main characters without feeling off. Also, I think we understand that actors age, so there's no way to make a new James Bond movie starring Sean Connery, or take more trips to Oz with Judy Garland.

However, there's something so iconic about an animated character, there's much less room in our minds to allow for major variations, and cartoon characters are effectively immortal. Talented artists can keep churning out "Simpsons" episodes for twenty-five years, never changing any of the designs. As long as the original versions of the characters remain successful and familiar and relevant to the younger generation, there's nothing to be gained by starting over from the beginning. "Alvin and the Chipmunks" may have been a hit with kids, but I think that's only because the franchise was all but dead by the time of the reboot. To us old school "Alvin" fans, the CGI chipmunks still look very odd.

I expect "Shrek" will return at some point in the future, once the memory of the current films has faded a bit and Dreamworks has figured out a way to bring him back in a different format. There are still plenty of non-film options - more spinoffs, television series, direct to video sequels, video games, crossover projects, web content, and more. 3D IMAX re-releases are also a very real possibility. Any new Shrek movie, however, is either going to be another sequel or prequel for the foreseeable future. If a reboot happens, it'll be far off in the future, when the current version of the grumpy green ogre has become a nostalgic relic. And that day may never come at all.
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And now for something completely different.

For fun, I've put together a Youtube playlist of various television and movie (and related) clips. These are mostly just odds and ends that don't really have anything in common except that they all have a strong music element. Some are parts of ad campaigns, some are nostalgic oddities from my childhood, and some are unclassifiable ephemera that wouldn't be showing up on this blog except in a form like this. However, I find them all very entertaining, and worth pointing out for recommendation. Hopefully, you'll find something in the mix that tickles your fancy too.

Daicon 4 - In 1983, a group of young Japanese animators came together to create a special tribute video for a science fiction convention called Daicon. They'd done a more rudimentary short a few years earlier, called "Daicon 3," but nobody was expecting the massive leap in quality of "Daicon 4," still considered one of the most beloved touchstones of 80s anime fans and the otaku culture. And the animators who made it? They would go on to form Studio GAINAX, the creators of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagaan."

You and Me - Alice Cooper singing a love ballad duet with a bird puppet, from his appearance on "The Muppet Show" back in 1978. It was part of a string of appearances that were aiming to put the controversial rocker in settings that were incongruous with his dark rocker persona. The clip omits the punchline of the scene, but I don't think it needs it.

Angle Dance - "Square One Television" was a late 80s PBS children's show designed to teach math concepts. Using a combination of comedy sketches and video segments, "Square One" patterned itself after MTV. They made several parody music videos like this one. "Angle Dance," however, from my own recollection, had by far the most nerdy math puns.

Blood on the Coal - As every "Spinal Tap" fan knows, the members of that beloved parody heavy metal band are played by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer. However, the trio also appear occasionally as an entirely different musical group, The Folksmen, who originated in a 1984 SNL sketch and went on to feature in 2003's folk music mockumentary, "A Mighty Wind." Here’s their appearance on "Mad TV" promoting the movie. As with their appearances as Spinal Tap, it's hard to tell that these guys aren't the real thing.

Paranoia Agent OP - Satoshi Kon's 2003 anime is still one of the trippiest things I've ever seen. This extends to the exhilaratingly weird and appropriate opening credits sequence.

Portrait d'Un Robot - An old "Sesame Street" film short, set to Janko Nilovic's "Portrait d'Un Robot," featuring old wind-up toys, (then) modern robots, space shuttles, and satellites.

I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me - From Brian DePalma's "Carrie," this is the happiest moment in a movie better remembered for its bloody horrors – Carrie's first dance at the prom. In addition to the technically impressive spinning shot, Sissy Spacek and William Katt are at their most lovable. The song playing is "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me," sung by Katie Irving.

Discombobulate - A quick and charmingly unpolished music video put together for the soundtrack of the 2009 "Sherlock Holmes" movie. I love that we not only get to see composer Hans Zimmer at work, but many of the musicians behind the scenes who contributed to the score.

Le Café - A morbidly funny French animated short from Stephanie Marguerite & Emilie Tarascou about a man who has a little problem with drinking too much coffee. The song is by Oldelaf & Mr D.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - Another little oddball bit of marketing material, a music video from the director and leads of "(500) Days of Summer," for a song written and sung by Zooey Deschanel as part of the "She & Him" indie duo. Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt keep popping up together in various little one-off projects like this, but "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here" is my favorite of their collaborations. I even like it better than "(500) Days of Summer."

Holy Motors Entracte - Accordion act breaks should happen more often in real life.

Take This Waltz Amusement Ride - Sarah Polley's "Take This Waltz" was one of the more overlooked films of 2012, probably because of its difficult subject matter. The film has a lot of flaws, but then it also has moments like this, where Michelle Willaims and Luke Kirby's characters go to an amusement park. This may be the best use of The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" ever.
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With "Pacific Rim" coming out in a couple of weeks and the marketing blitz hitting a crescendo, I think it's time to talk about mecha. The mecha genre, found primarily in Japanese media, covers stories about humanoid robots and machines, including mechanized battle armor, mechanical constructs, modified vehicles with battle capabilities, and your good old-fashioned battling robots. The Transformers are mecha, even though they're technically aliens from outer space, because they're living machines who have the ability to act like vehicles and other large mechanized objects. Iron Man is a borderline case, since his armor does give Tony Stark special enhancements, but traditional mecha tend to be more substantial machines that are piloted or operated.

I've noticed that there's been widespread confusion over the appeal of mecha in the American mainstream, as Japanese media remains an acquired taste. Why giant robots? Why building-sized machines and vehicles, often stylized to ridiculous extremes? Well, part of it's cultural, of course. Japan is famously an industry leader in the research and development of robotics, and use more of them than just about any other country in the world. Robots are also far more prevalent in Japan's popular media, with the Giant Robot genre emerging in kids' manga in the 1950s and 1960s. Several influential titles like "Mazinger Z" and "Tetsujin 28" (aka "Gigantor") seem to have kicked off the national love affair with giant, heroic, mechanical creatures. I think it's also worth remembering that Japan is home to the kaiju, the giant monsters like Godzilla and Mothra, and the same impulse that created them probably also had a hand in the robots getting supersized.

In the West the most high profile mecha franchises remain the ones that were made for children, like "Transformers," "Voltron" and "Power Rangers." In Japan, however, mecha gradually expanded into many different genres over the years. Mecha action and science-fiction shows are a given, but there are also mecha comedy, fantasy, historical fiction, and crime series aimed at much older audiences. They range in style from cartoony and over-the-top to starkly realistic and cerebral. The Real Robot anime subgenre is notably more grounded in the real world and shows human beings using mecha as tools. Some of the most famous mecha franchises like "Gundam" and "Macross" are military-themed shows that involve extensive depictions of mecha used in violent warfare, often alongside traditional weaponry. Mecha stories have become so pervasive in Japanese fiction, they can be seen as the equivalent of superhero stories in the United States, with their own tropes and traditions. Sure, giant battle machines and people with superpowers are completely impossible, but don't they look cool?

Having seen my share of mecha TV series and movies, It's clear that mecha are great for really huge-scale carnage. The "Transformers" movies have already proven this. However, another important aspect that I think often gets lost in the discussion is that piloted mecha allow normal people to gain the powers of superheroes - superior size, strength, and all kinds of different weapons, while still remaining ordinary, relatable people. Mecha pilots tend to be less like Superman, and more like Maverick from "Top Gun." Unlike what we saw in "Transformers," sentient Giant Robots usually work in concert with human operators, and their relationships are central to their stories. This allows for very personal human drama to play out on an epic scale. "Neon Genesis Evangelion," the most influential mecha show of the 90s, is about a group of teenage mecha pilots with a lot of sticky psychological issues, who can't help bringing their problems with them to the battlefield.

Considering current American blockbuster trends, the mecha genre is increasingly looking like a good fit for franchise filmmaking needs. Giant IMAX screens require giant spectacle to fill them, and you don't get much bigger than gargantuans like Optimus Prime and Tetsujin 28 duking it out against the forces of evil. With Michael Bay, "The Avengers" and "Man of Steel" setting the bar higher for big CGI-enhanced battles, most mecha series should fit right in. "Pacific Rim" was clearly heavily influenced by many famous mecha anime, and if it does well, I expect we'll see more adaptations in the same vein. And if it doesn't, it may only be a temporary setback, as mecha keep showing up in our movies in various from, from the AMPs in "Avatar" to the rumbling robot boxers of "Real Steel."

Like many mecha fans, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Japan's film industry is one of modest means, so they've produced very few pieces of live action mecha media. Hollywood studios are currently the only ones capable of creating something with big budget production values like "Pacific Rim," and they're taking a pretty big gamble on this movie, considering the traditionally niche appeal of mecha in the US.

In Japan, however, they're going to eat this up.
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Once upon a time in the 1990s, MTV was the home of some of the most interesting experiments in adult-oriented American animation. "Liquid Television" was their showcase for indie shorts that launched several series, including "Beavis and Butt-head." However, I was more interested in the less conventional titles, particularly two shows that I took the trouble to track down when I was in college: "Æon Flux" and "The Maxx." These days animation aimed at adults isn't a rarity. But as much as I enjoy "Archer" and the recently returned "Venture Brothers," it's still these two MTV shows that serve as my benchmark for what mature, ambitious animation can be.

Let's start with "The Maxx," based on the Sam Kieth comics. Though it looks like a superhero story, featuring a titular hero with superhuman powers and a hidden identity, he's not your standard crime-fighter. The Maxx in the real world is a homeless bum, but he also exists in another world linked to his subconscious mind, and perhaps others, called the Outback. The Outback is full of monsters and fantastic creatures, and the Maxx is charged with protecting the Jungle Queen, who in reality is a social worker named Julie. Most of the too-brief series is spent unraveling the various traumas that brought these characters together, and battling the various evils that the Outback is spilling into the real world.

This is a story that could conceivably be told in live action, but it would be pointless. The joy of "The Maxx" is in its wildly exaggerated characters and its anarchic cartoon violence, paired with some very dark and twisted explorations of the human psyche. I saw most of the show in a single sitting, but I expect the individual episodes must have played just as well in their original eleven-minute installments. Despite the more adult subject matter, they have all the energy and the outsized emotion of a purely comic cartoon shorts like "Tom and Jerry" or "Looney Toons," more than enough to make a big impression on the viewer in only a few minutes. What especially impressed me is that the characters feel like real people, underneath all the layers of comic-book fantasy. Maxx fixates on "Cheers." Julie has a feminist streak. Sarah is too miserable even for the Goth crowd. So at the show's core is some really good, solid character drama that is more than enough to make up for the rougher spots.

Moving on to "Æon Fluxx," which was originally created by Peter Chung as a series of five-minute shorts, and then eventually expanded into half-hour episodes. This one took advantage of cartoon logic to some wild extremes. The series is set in a dystopian future that looks like something out of Moebius comic, where the female rebel freedom fighter Æon, dressed in outfits that tend to resemble leather fetish gear, is perpetually at war with the forces of her arch-nemesis (and occasional lover), the dictator Trevor Goodchild. In the original series of "Æon" shorts, the main character died violently in every episode. In the longer episodes, her survival rate was a little better, though none of the endings could be called happy in any sense. As you might expect, there is no continuity of story from one episode to the next, and really no constants aside from the two main characters and the basic premise. One of the best stories doesn't even feature Æon as the main character.

I find it difficult to describe "Æon Flux." It resembles "Heavy Metal" on a surface level, full of sex and violence, but it's far more intelligent, more bizarre, and more ambitious. Watching it felt akin to reading a really good anthology of science-fiction short stories, full of strange existential conundrums and ironic concepts. It's one of the few shows where I honestly never knew where any of the stories were going, where there didn't seem to be any boundaries at all. Not only could Æon die, but she could be fundamentally changed in different ways, depending on the episode. She could really and truly fall in love with Trevor. She could turn out to be from a different universe or reality, or simply a clever ruse that never actually existed at all. Moreover, some of the concepts are so alien, like mind-warping astral beings and artificial consciences, they can be off-putting to sci-fi novices. The animation is particularly helpful here in giving form to some really wild and avant garde ideas.

It's been nearly two decades since these series went off the air, and I've rarely seen anything in American animation that has come close since in terms of sheer daring and maturity. And I find it sad that they've become so obscure now, and that few people remember or reference them when talking about television animation. Sure, "The Simpsons" and "South Park" undeniably had the most impact in the 90s, but they weren't the only trailblazers. And I hope that someday we'll be in a time and place where commercial animation can venture down that path again.
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The Merida makeover kerfuffle has mostly blown over, but I wanted to put in my two cents, not just on this particular controversy, but the existence of the Disney Princess brand in general. During my last trip to the Disneyland theme park, it was hard to escape the princesses. Everywhere you looked, there were little girls dressed up as Merida from "Brave," Rapunzel from "Tangled," Tiana from "The Princess and the Frog," and a smattering of Belles and Ariels and Jasmines. I caught a glimpse of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique near Sleeping Beauty's Castle, a salon where girls could be transformed into their favorite princess for the day. (Contrary to a recent episode of "The Big Bang Theory," grown ups aren't allowed to wander the park in costume, for fear of confusing the kids).

The cynical part of me thought that all the little girls in their color-coded princess gowns were awfully generic looking. Sure, they were obviously having fun and they looked adorable, but it reinforced for me that the bulk of this whole Disney Princess branding business is tied to selling traditionally gender-coded merchandise for girls like dresses and accessories and dolls. And the shinier and sparklier, the better, which is why Princess Merida was redesigned with a fancier gown, better groomed hair, and it looks like she's wearing eye make-up. If you look at the other princess characters, you'll notice that they've all been redesigned like this to an extent. However, Merida's makeover is especially jarring because it's so contrary to her character. PIXAR did a great job of creating a princess who valued her individuality over tradition, and was more interested in adventuring than being cooped up at home, learning to be a proper lady. In one scene, she rips her way out of the constraining, pretty dress that her mother has stuffed her into, in order to win an archery tournament.

I don't have any issues with the individual Disney Princesses as role models. I think this generation's Merida and Tiana and Rapunzel are great examples of well-rounded, interesting animated heroines. Even the older, more traditional princesses like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella have their good points. However, the Disney Princess branding insists on presenting all of them as these slightly differentiated variations on a very generic, ideal princess type, where the emphasis is all on looks and clothes. It's notable that the more action-oriented heroines who are part of the Princess brand, Mulan and Pocahontas, don't appear nearly as often as their more passive contemporary, Princess Jasmine. If you like Merida because she broke a lot of the rules, it's very strange to see her being shoehorned back into the role of the pretty princess character who is being used to sell more dresses and dolls. Fortunately, there's plenty of "Brave" merchandise that features the more recognizable Merida, with her messy hair, bow and arrows, and plainer clothes - even action figures and some toy weapons! However, they don't appear under the Disney Princess label.

Was making Merida a Disney Princess a mistake? Adding Merida to the lineup might have been viewed as a positive decision if you see it as an attempt to shake up the princess image a bit, and try to broaden what being a Disney princess means. However, when Disney started right off by giving Merida a glittery redesign to make her fit in with the other princesses, it was apparent that this wasn't the case at all. No, Merida became the eleventh official Disney princess because she's popular, she appeals to the same audience, and she makes for good crossover synergy with the PIXAR brands. And it's no wonder that the decision ended up becoming a perfect flashpoint for all the criticisms that have been levied against the Disney Princess brand in the last few years - chiefly that it promotes problematic gender roles and perpetuates all the regressive, shallow, antiquated ideas associated with princesshood. Concerned parents can try to keep their girls away from the princess merchandise, but the brand is so pervasive, that it can be difficult.

For the record, Belle was always my favorite Disney heroine, but not because of the pretty yellow dress. I liked her because she was a bookworm and a social oddball. Also, "Beauty and the Beast" coming out when I was still in the target audience for animated kids' film probably had a lot to do with it. The Disney Princess brand wasn't around in my day, and I wonder if that would have made any difference. It wasn't until the year 2000 that Disney started treating their princesses as a collective entity, and created this incredibly lucrative brand that now moves everything from bedding and toys to consumer electronics. So the Disney Princesses are not going away any time soon, but surely there's room to improve the message a bit. They have this wonderful set of characters that they aren't really using to their full potential. I'd love to see Disney make some adjustments to help the princesses be a little less Barbie and little more Dora the Explorer or American Girl.

After all, there's no reason you can't put an emphasis on good role models and good stories, and still hawk plenty of pastel-colored merchandise at the same time.
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I grew up in Southern California, so I've been to Disneyland many times, but it's been about a decade since the last trip, and I'd never set foot in the California Adventure park. So when the opportunity came up during my latest vacation, I figured it was about time I took the plunge. And why am I writing about it in my media blog? Well, for one thing it's Disney, and the theme parks are almost impossible to separate from the media empire that they've built up over the years. All the recent properties Disney has acquired were visible the parks this week - lots of "Star Wars" merchandise, "Iron Man" suits in the Tomorrowland Innoventions exhibit, and the Muppets 3D show tucked away in a corner of California Adventure. But besides that, a theme park attraction is something of a pinnacle for a media brand, a sign that you've a big enough draw to justify being associated with an expensive real-world experience. Or as "Community" put it, you want to be the show that gets twelve seasons and a theme park.

Specifically, I want to talk about the presence of "Cars," the PIXAR franchise that kids love, but adults generally rank near the bottom of their lists of favorite PIXAR movies. It's "Cars," not "The Incredibles," and not "Toy Story," that has an entire themed land in the California Adventure park, as big as Toontown in Disneyland. It's a recreation of Radiator Springs, the little town from the 2006 "Cars" movie, comprised of a long street with themed restaurants and shops on either side, finally dead-ending at the Radiator Springs Racers, the most popular ride in the park, with the longest wait times. There are also two smaller rides, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi's Flying Tires. The whole place is beautifully designed. The entrance to Luigi's Flying Tires looks like Luigi's tire shop from the movie, complete with the Leaning Tower of Tires out front. The Cozy Cone Motel, with its giant traffic cones, contains a series of snack stands, where you buy items served in commemorative traffic cone-shaped containers. Fillmore's organic fuel stop is now a beverage stand. Ramone's Body Shop sells clothing and merchandise. Flo's V8 Diner, of course, is a working diner.

Despite not caring much for the "Cars" movies, I thought Cars Land was a blast. There was so much work put into the place, from the mountain ranges created using forced perspective, to the talking "Cars" characters rolling down the street with a gaggle of handlers in tow, to the tons of little details incorporated into every single structure and visible item for sale. In line for the Luigi ride, where you ride around in little bumper-hover-crafts shaped like tires, I noticed that the hedges were shaped like tires, the stanchions for the lines were topped by little silver tires, and even the fencing around the greenery looked like tire treads. When I came back in the evening, many of the buildings were lit up with colorful neon signage. I found the Radiator Springs that existed in Cars Land far more engaging than the one that appeared in the movie, where many of the little businesses only registered as cute cartoon automotive gags and were quickly forgotten. Walking around the physical version, I was constantly struck by how cleverly executed the place was, and I couldn't stop looking at everything.

I'm sure that Disney's Imagineers could have made a similarly impressive locale for "Finding Nemo" or "Monsters Inc." There was also a smaller "Bug's Life" area at the park, aimed at smaller children, that had some nice touches. However, I can see how "Cars" had more potential for a variety of reasons. The movie was tied to a major outdoor location, Radiator Springs, that would be easier to recreate. Car racing was a major component of the plot, an activity that was easier to build rides around. "Cars" is also very conceptually and visually distinctive. Lots of other franchises have done insects and fish and toys and monsters before, but it's hard to think of another one involving automobiles. And then of course, I'm sure Disney was swayed by the fact that "Cars" merchandise has always done extremely well. It's almost certainly the reason why "Cars" got its sequel and a new spinoff film, "Planes," that opens later this summer. And it's why "Cars" headliner Lightning McQueen is all over the advertisements and identification banners and signs for California Adventure.

On the flip side, you really had to keep your eyes open to find any sign of "Ratatouille" or "WALL-E" at the parks. I was especially disappointed that "The Incredibles" barely had any presence at all. Now that Disney has all those Marvel superheroes to play with, I guess PIXAR's superhero family is on the outs. That's a shame, since I can think of a lot that Disney could do with the property. Remember Syndrome's secret lair? And Edna Mode's workshop? Guess I need to go buy more "Incredibles" action figures if I ever want to see them at the Disney parks.
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It's the first week of May, and we've already got several full trailers for some of the big November movies in circulation. I haven't done a trailer post in a while, so we'll be talking about these, plus some of the notable later summer films where the first trailers were only released in the last few months. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get started. As usual, all links below lead to Trailer Addict.

Thor: The Dark World - Of all the individual Marvel movies, I'd put "Thor" near the bottom of the list. I like the character, but his appearances on screen have felt the most slapdash and lacking in substance. I expect the filmmakers know this, which is why they make sure to show us part of a scene that likely happens a good ways into the second act: Thor seeking help from Loki, who is easily the most memorable villain in Marvel's film universe so far. We don't see anything of the film's actual villains, or really much of the threat they pose, but Loki's involvement is enough.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - I've already been spoiled regarding a lot of what happens in this movie, so I was impressed with how well this trailer kept some of the biggest plot points under wraps, at least for now. I wouldn't be surprised if future trailers go on to reveal more. However, this one nicely sets up the rising tensions between Katniss and the Capitol, giving a lot of screen time to Donald Sutherland, who plays the major antagonist President Snow. And the sight of Philip Seymour Hoffman getting in on the fun makes me indescribably happy.

R.I.P.D. - The trailer spends most of its time setting up the concept of Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges as part of an undead police force, but what it's really doing is selling you on a certain mood and tone. This is going to be a supernatural action movie with a lot of CGI effects, but it's also going to be a broad comedy. I can definitely see why people are suggesting that this is going to be "MIB" with the undead. Even the poster looks pretty similar. But will "R.I.P.D." be any good? I can't tell from what we've seen so far, but I do like everybody involved here.

2 Guns - Here's Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg playing a pair of cops, who are both working undercover at cross purposes, get betrayed, and have to join forces to win the day. Pretty standard buddy movie setup. So you sell the movie the way you always do. Car chases! Gun battles! One liners! The big question is whether Washington and Wahlberg are going to work well together onscreen, and I think the clips make a decent case for it. The banter flows, and the antagonism feels genuine. It's not very original, but who sees a movie like this for originality?

RED 2 - The retirees are back for more mayhem, and this time they're joined by new villains Catherine Zeta-Jones and Lee Byung-hun. However, the highlight of this installment is almost certainly going to be Anthony Hopkins, who is acting a great deal sillier than I've seen him on the screen in some time. Will he and John Malkovitch have a ham-off at some point? I can only hope. Otherwise, you have your typical spies and renegades story and most of the cast of the previous film back for more fun - including Helen Mirren and all her dangerous toys.

The Wolverine - The problems of "The Wolverine" trailer are twofold. On the one hand, it's relying way too much on previously established imagery from the "X-men" franchise. And on the other hand, the new material looks pretty weak. The bulk of this movie will be set in Japan, but the visuals are generic, the action and effects look underwhelming, and the whole thing is just so much smaller scale than anything else in the franchise. These are major problems that the marketing for "X-men: First Class" had too, and I hope "The Wolverine" is similarly better than its ads.

Elysium - Director Neil Blomkamp is back, and he's brought more "Halo"- like visuals and some big stars for his latest science-fiction film. Matt Damon and Jodie Foster star in the tale of a dystopian future society where an extreme split has developed between the haves and the have-nots. I'm expecting more social commentary, more crazy action scenes, and more deeply flawed characters. And I'm intrigued that the story appears to have many similarities to the manga "Battle Angel Alita," the one James Cameron's been trying to turn into a film for a decade now.

Ender's Game - And here's the movie that I'm the most curious about, out of everything else listed here. How do you turn Orson Scott Card's science-fiction classic into a Hollywood effects extravaganza? From the new trailer I recognize the characters and the concepts, but how faithful is this adaptation going to be? The trailer is provocative, but it's hardly very informative, more concerned with making sure we see every award-winning actor who will appear in the film than introducing us to Ender Wiggins or his universe. The glimpses of Battle School and the Formics are encouraging though.

Turbo - I know, I know, but the little snails are frickin' adorable!
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The 2013 summer movie season looks to be on the quieter side this year, with only about five or six titles that I'm really curious about. I figured it was a good time to look ahead to other film projects that have been quietly coming together over the past few months. I've wanted to write about several of them individually, but it never felt like I had enough material, so I'm going to use this post to geek out about everything coming up in the near future that I'm really getting excited about. As usual for me, there's a lot of science fiction on the list. I'm a nerd. I admit it.

2014

In March we're getting Darren Aronofsky's long-awaited "Noah" project, starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. Then shortly after comes "Transcendance," the directing debut of cinematographer Wally Pfister, who is best known for working with Christopher Nolan. It's been described as a science-fiction neo-noir that will star Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany. Nolan will be helming his own original science-fiction movie, "Interstellar," which has something to do with time travel and will star Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. That one's currently dated for November. And a month later, we're finally going to see what Brad Bird's secret "Tomorrowland" project with George Clooney is all about.

Summer currently looks a little dire for original projects, but the Wachowski siblings will be returning with "Jupiter Ascending" in July, with Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. We're finally learning a little more about it this week since filming has begun, and it sounds like a promisingly crazy space opera in the same vein as the Korean segment of "Cloud Atlas." And a week later, Disney and Marvel will be unleashing "The Guardians of the Galaxy," one of the pivotal Marvel Universe Phase 2 films. Everything I've read about this goofy-sounding tale of intergalactic space cops sounds ridiculous (alien raccoons?!) and I can't wait to see how they're going to pull this off. Will this finally break the curse of the movies with the word "Guardians" in the title? Either way, this is going to be a big one.

Most of 2014' s sequels don't interest me (Amazing Spidey 2, Jurassic Park 4, Fast and Furious 7, Transformers 4), and others are too sketchy to say much about yet (Apes prequel #2, Hunger Games 3, Captain America 2, 21 Jump Street 2, Hobbit 3), but one that I'm definitely looking forward to is "X-Men: Days of Future Past" that will be coming in July. Brian Singer is back as director, and will be combining the various X-men movie canons with the franchise's most famous time travel storyline. Matthew Vaughn, who did such a fantastic job with "First Class," is contributing to the screenplay. The press has been full of announcements about returning castmembers, and we're getting Peter Dinklage and Omar Sy to boot. Bring it on!

On the animation front, there are a couple of potentially interesting titles: "The Good Dinosaur" form PIXAR, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" and "Happy Smekday!" from Dreamworks, and "The Boxtrolls" from Laika. We'll also be getting the highly anticipated sequel to "How to Train Your Dragon," which Dreamworks is counting on to become its next major franchise, so expect a lot of push behind that one.

Finally, some smaller movies with no set dates that we can only speculate are going to arrive in 2014 include Wes Anderson's "Grand Budapest Hotel," Terrence Malick's "Knight of Cups," Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice," and the "Veronica Mars" movie. Note to self: go watch "Veronica Mars."

2015

Only the really big studio productions get scheduled this far out in advance, mostly animated films and superhero movies. But by any measure, 2015 is going to be a big movie year. The main events, of course, will be "Avengers 2" and "Star Wars VII," but PIXAR also recently announced that their mysterious November, 2015 release was "Finding Dory." The fact that Disney is behind all three of these movies points to the strength of the studio's brand acquisition strategy over the last few years.

On top of that, we've got the final "Hunger Games" movie, the "Avatar" sequel, Edgar Wright's "Ant-Man," and an original PIXAR movie called "Inside Out." Probably only of interest to me are the just-announced "Pitch Perfect" sequel and "Kung-Fu Panda 3." I like "Dragons" very much, but I don't think the "Panda" franchise gets nearly enough credit.

The most intriguing "maybe" of the year, however, is still only in the planning stages: Warners' potential "Justice League" movie. Depending on how "Man of Steel" does, this project may or may not happen, and we may or may not be getting a superhero team showdown with "The Avengers 2," and it may or may not be a complete disaster for Warners.

And that may or may not be the best entertainment of all.

Happy watching!
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Remember "Rejected"? Don Hertzfeld's surreally violent cartoon was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short back in the year 2000, and has become an influential cult favorite. It's striking not just for its inventive visuals and unusual level of blood and guts (inflicted primarily on minimalist pen doodles), but its particular existential and philosophical bent. In "Rejected," the discarding of the animator's rejected drawings is depicted as a horrific apocalypse, dooming his terrified creations to an unspeakable void.

This level of cheerful nihilism was only possible because Hertzfeld is one of those rare independent filmmakers working in animation who is essentially a one-man studio. By doing nearly everything himself, he retains a high degree of creative control, which ensures his work retains his mature, challenging voice and point of view I encountered more of his darkly funny shorts over the years, like "Billy's Balloon," where balloons become sentient and turn on their owners, and "The Meaning of Life," which charts a twisted version of human history. Then in 2006, he produced something quite different.

"Everything Will be OK" is the seventeen-minute story of a man named Bill, depicted as a stick figure wearing a little rectangle of a hat, who is losing his mind. Bill is meant to be a real world person, though a highly abstracted version of one, who goes to work every day, keeps in contact with an ex-girlfriend, and has relatives who worry about him. He watches a lot of TV and likes ice cream sandwiches. At first his journey involves a series of absurd little episodes and funny observations on daily life - an everyday conversation gone awry because neither participants remember who the other person is, inappropriate fantasies, and the boredom and emptiness of the daily routine. But then Bill starts forgetting more and more, and his condition goes from annoying to frightening, and it becomes clear that something is very wrong with Bill.

"Everything Will be OK" was followed by two other Bill shorts, "I Am So Proud of You" and "It's Such a Beautiful Day," completed in 2008 and 2011 respectively. Last year, Hertzfeld edited all three shorts together into a feature film, running a little over an hour in length, also titled "It's Such a Beautiful Day." The latter installments delve deeper into mental illness, dysfunctional families, and finally the very nature of life and death and human existence. Though it retains the same sense of humor and penchant for the gruesome as Hertzfeld's shorts, the approach is much more serious and even-handed, to reflect the more ambitious material. The result is such a weird and wonderful film, incredibly personal and very touching. What makes it all the more astonishing is that despite the occasional use of live-action film elements and some special effects, "It's Such a Beautiful Day" is primarily comprised of simple stick figure drawings and Hertzfeld's narration.

Yet the animation is so evocative, and the storytelling with these simple tools is so strong and so compelling. It's easy to relate to Bill, who comes off as a real, sympathetic person suffering from some terrible unnamed mental ailment, constantly questioning the nature of his existence. Because he has no defining visuals characteristics beyond his hat, he is instantly a universal figure, and you automatically feel for him as he struggles against delusions and disorientation. The hand-drawn animation also allows a closer degree of shared experience with Bill's tenuous state of mind, visualizing it in ways that live action film and other, more complicated kinds of animation would be unable to match. And you realize how little it takes - a few simple ink lines on paper, really - to evoke such powerful reactions.

Their's something tremendously heartening about the existence of a film like "It's Such a Beautiful Day." Theatrical and-drawn animation is supposed to be dead in the U.S., economically unfeasible and out of fashion (Disney Animation announced a new round of layoffs last week). And yet here's Don Hertzfeld, toiling away with his doodles and stick-figures, who has created a film of real emotional depth and insight on the human experience, and has managed to support himself through his work. Hertzfeld self-distributed "It's Such a Beautiful Day," currently offering it for $2 online downloads through Veoh and other platforms.

I've always been a big fan of animation, but over the last few years I've found the output of the big studios creatively wanting. Sure, last year's "Wreck-It -Ralph" and "Madagascar 3" were a lot of fun, and you can't deny the creators of "Brave" and "Paranorman" had some serious artistic chops. However, when it comes to advancing the art of animation, "It's Such a Beautiful Day" leaves them all behind in the dust. This is the first animated film in years I can justify saving a spot for on my annual "Best of" list.
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When we're very small, all movies are darker and more frightening than they are intended to be. Even if a character is only a year or two older than you are, that difference feels huge. Threats linger longer, and danger feels more real. It's rough to be a little kid, when are emotions aren't tempered, and often feel out of our control. I think that's why the movies and television that we see at that age tends to hit a bit harder, why we experience them more strongly, and fixate on them.

On the internet, you often find people popping up in movie forums or message boards trying to identify something that they saw as a kid, that stayed with them over the years. I've gone through this myself a few times, trying to connect vivid recollections of old cartoons and B-movies, like "Prisoners of the Lost Universe," "The Adventures of Mark Twain," and "Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome" with their correct titles. And when I went back to watch them, they were barely anything like I remembered, usually much lighter and sillier and fake-looking. I have some positively horrific memories of the two "Care Bears" movies, which upon later review as an adult, turned out to be embarrassingly benign.

So it's a rare treat to find one of those half-remembered old movies that really is a scary and strange and weird as the child you thought it was. Thanks to the internet in the late 90s I figured out that an old anime movie I'd been especially fascinated with as a kid was "Unico in the Island of Magic," which had been dubbed in English the early 80s, released on home video and played a few times on the Disney Channel before it promptly disappeared. Surviving video cassettes were sold for ridiculous prices on Ebay. It wasn't until I was in college many years later that I worked out how to acquire a secondhand copy. An official Region 1 version was finally released last year by an indie distributor.

After the "Care Bears," I was expecting "Unico" to be just another piece of cheap kiddie pabulum, but it wasn't. Oh, the film was certainly made for consumption by children, including comic characters with exaggerated toon-y designs, and a main character, Unico the baby unicorn, who is cuteness personified. Unico was created by Osamu Tezuka, best known for "Astro Boy," and the idea is that Unico's magic powers and goodness have troubled the gods of his world, so he has to hide from them on Earth. The friendly West Wind takes him from place to place, where he has various adventures, beating back evil where he finds it.

If "Island of Magic" is any indication, Unico's world is a very dark place. Like Astro Boy, Unico is very simple and innocent, but the threats he faces are anything but. Shortly after the West Wind drops him off this time, Unico is adopted by a little girl named Cheri as a pet. She takes him home to meet her parents, right before they're paid a visit by Cheri's estranged older brother Toby, who ran away some years ago to become the apprentice of an evil wizard. This wizard is Lord Kuruku, who discovers Toby with his family, and promptly turns them into "living puppets," identical human-shaped blocks. Toby helps Cheri and Unico escape, but has to turn all the rest of the people in his village into more living puppets. Then Kuruku takes them all back to his island, where he's building an ever-growing nightmare castle, using the transformed people as building blocks.

And that's not the most disturbing part of it. I haven't even gotten to Lord Kuruku himself, who is this floating, ever-shifting paranormal creature, able to change himself into a variety of geometrical shapes and colors, always with a pair of mad, bulging eyes. The American dub of "Island of Magic" is clumsy stuff, as most dubs were in the 80s, but the voice they created for Lord Kuruku is this electronically enhanced, barely human sounding thing, full of screeches and warbles and distorted sounds. Upon rewatch, it was actually creepier than I remembered. I've found that most people who recall seeing the movie as kids, like I did, remember it chiefly for Lord Kuruku and the living puppets.

"Unico and the Island of Magic" is actually quite a hidden gem. It was the second of a pair of "Unico" movies produced by Sanrio, back when they were trying to make a name for themselves in anime production. The animation is surprisingly good, especially the effects work with Lord Kuruku and a finale that involves a lot of large-scale destruction. Still, I don't think the movie would have had quite the effect on me that it did as a grown-up if I hadn't seen it first as a child, and I didn't have those memories of being freaked out by the scary, screaming puppet man.

Seriously, what demented, twisted mind came up with this guy?!
---

And now ladies and gentlemen, The Doom Song.

Doom doom doom doomy doom doom doom DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! Doom doom doom. Doom doom doom! Doomy doomie doomey doo-wah doom! Doom doom doom, doom dee doom dee doom doom doom. Dum dum dum DOOM! Doom doom doom, doo doo doom doom doom. Da doom, da doom DOOM DOOM DOOM DA DA DOOM! DOOOOOOM!

Dee dah DOOM! Da Da DOOM! DOOM doom doom doom, DOOM doom doom doom, DOOM doom doom doom, DOOM doom doom doom, Da da DOOM da DOOM! Dooom doooooom doooooom dooooom, DOOM DOOM (da-doom doom doom). DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! Doomerino, Doomeransky, Doomie-oomie-oomie-oooooom! DOOM dah doom dah doom doom doom doom DOOOOOOM! Doom!

Doom doom doomdoom DOOMDOOM doom doom doomdoomdoom doom doom DOOMDOOMDOOM doom doom doom doomdoom doom doom dee deed da DOOOM DOOOM DOOOM! DOOM DOOM DOOM dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom DA DOOM! DA DOOM! Doom doom doom, doom dee doom dee doom doom doom. Dum dum dum DOOM! Doom doom doom, doom dee doom dee doom doom doom. Dum dum dum DOOM! Doom doom doom, doom dee doom dee doom doom doom. Dum dum dum DOOM! DOO-WAH-DOOOMIE DOOMIE DUM DIDDIE DOOM!

Doom doom doo-da-doom, doom doom doo-da-doom, doom doom doo-da-doom, DOOM! Doom doom da doom dooooom, doom doom da doom dooooom, doom doom doom doomy doomy doom DOOM doom DOOOOM! Doom doom doom DOOM da-doom doom DOOM do-doom doom DOOM! Doom doom doom DOOM da-da-doom DOOM, da-da DOOM. DOOM da-da-doom DOOM, da-da DOOM da-da-DOOM! DOOM DOOMIE DOOM DOOM. Doom doomie-doom-doom. Doom doom doom DOOM doom, DOO-DOOM DOO-DOOOM! Doom doom doom DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM!

Dooom! Dooom! Doomy doomy doomydoomy, DOOM doom doom doomy! Doom dum doom dum doomy doom doom. Da-doomie doomie doom doom doom. Doomie! Doomie! Doom doom doom dee doomie. Doomdoom doomdoom, doom doom doo doom doom doom. Dooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom. Dooooooooom doom doom da doom da doom doom doom doo doom doo doom. Doom doom doom, doom dee doom dee doom doom doom. Doom doom doom, doom dee dee dee doom doom doom. La la la doom. FA LA LA LA LA LA DOOOM, DOOOM DOOOOOOM!

Doom doom doom doom doom, doom doom do DOOM, DOOOM doom do-doom, DOOM do-doom doom doooom, doom doom dooom, do-do-DOOOM! Doom doom doo doom doom. DOOMY-DOOMY-DOOM, doom do do DOOM. Do do DOOM, doomy-doomy-doomy, Doom doom doom.

Doom da-doom.

THE END

So the newest season of FX's "Archer" has been rolling along nicely. The adults-only animated spy spoof is currently in its fourth season, and has picked up two new recurring characters. First there's Ron Cadillac (Ron Leibman), Malory's new husband, and Rodney (Andrew Donnelly), the ISIS armory's new clerk. Also, Ray is now a cyborg with robot legs, Cyril is dating Lana again, and Pam seems to be on the verge of becoming a new ISIS field agent. Barry and Katya have been making multiple appearances throughout this run of episodes, clearly being set up to for a big showdown a few episodes from now. And Sterling Archer? Though he occasionally shows tiny signs of growth, he's still the immature, emotionally stunted, spycraft savant man-child that we all know and love. And the show is full of just as much blood and guts and perversion and hilarity as ever.

However, the success of "Archer" has afforded it a few perks. The limited animation has been getting more animated, tackling more ambitious visuals, including several action scenes and better looking CGI vehicles. The guest star roster has also gotten more high-powered. Burt Reynolds famously stopped by last season, and this year an entire episode parodied reality television cooking shows with the help of Anthony Bourdain playing a pompous version of himself. For me, the biggest improvement is that at this point in the show's run, the shock value of the content has largely worn off, but the writers and the cast have become so comfortable in this universe that they can do more character-focused pieces and introduce characters that might not have worked in earlier seasons. Ron Cadillac is a good example, a charming older gent whose courtship of Malory happened off screen, and who has been played fairly straight so far. Cadillac displays no extreme behavior, and gives no reason for Archer to hate or suspect him, except we know that Archer's relationship with his mother has always been pretty warped, and Malory's love life has been colorful, to say the least. The old ultraviolence is still in play, but the writers don't need to go there as often.

I'm pretty settled on Pam and Cheryl being my favorite characters in the show, because the two of them are so horrible in such an entertaining way. Cheryl being a masochist and an airhead wouldn't fly anywhere else on television, but she's so cheerfully self-assured about it, and her inanity is taken to such wonderful extremes. It's one thing if the bimbo is just around to be saved by the show's heroes over and over again. It's quite another if her incompetence keeps making bad situations worse, and she just finds it hilarious. Pam is even more of a jerk because she's the smarter of the two, and she should know better, but on the other hand, everyone in ISIS is pretty awful in their own special way, so her apathy actually comes off as pretty reasonable most of the time. Also, I love that she's the biggest girl in the room, and she enjoys it. We've seen that Pam's very sexually active and more than capable of handling herself in a fight. Compared to these two, the rest of ISIS's roster of corporate drones can't compete.

I have to say that as far as late-night cartoon action spoofs go, I still prefer "Venture Bros.," which is finally returning to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in a few more weeks. "Venture" has a bigger universe, a more well-developed mythology, and more complex character relationships, so it tends to be more resonant underneath all the pop-culture references. "Archer," even though it can consistently get big laughs out of me, is much more shallow and disposable. It's still very committed to a very particular level of humor, and has only recently started poking around into deeper, more emotionally interesting places. The Lana/Archer/Ray love triangle has been heating up again, and Archer's had a few moments of real self-examination this year. Then again, getting in too deep could easily spoil that great satirical tone that "Archer" has developed, and it's still among the better comedies on television right now.

FX has already renewed "Archer" for a fifth season, and its success has contributed to the continued expansion of late night animation offerings. FOX Network, which is in the same corporate family tree as FX, is about to launch a Saturday night expansion of its "Animation Domination" programming block to compete with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in July. These late-night cartoons for grown-ups are no longer a rarity, but they still don't get as much respect as they should. So it's nice to see "Archer" thriving and kicking ass in the ratings. I fully understand why some are still skeptical of these shows, but they can no longer be ignored, and they're not going away any time soon.
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Yesterday Disney announced that they are pursuing development of a live action "Beauty and the Beast," to go along with "Alice in Wonderland," "Mirror, Mirror," and the upcoming "Maleficent" and "Cinderella." The fairy tale trend may be on its last legs in the rest of Hollywood, but Disney being Disney, they've found some success with it. The huge opening for "Oz the Great and Powerful" shows that the classics can still be lucrative if handled properly. So it shouldn't be a surprise that Disney has been going through its back catalog of animated properties looking for more children's stories to reinvent, and not just to keep feeding the storylines on "Once Upon a Time."

So what's next in the pipeline? There are some interesting possibilities. Disney already went through a similar phase in the 90s that netted us live action "The Jungle Book" and "101 Dalmatians" movies. I think "Tangled" and "The Princess and the Frog" are probably too recent, and most of the ones with animal stars like "The Rescuers," "Dumbo," and "Lady and the Tramp" would be too difficult to translate. I've made a list of some possible remaining candidates below.

"Pinocchio" - Remember that cheery "Geppetto" TV movie musical that Disney made back in 2000 with Drew Carey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus? How about the Italian version with Roberto Benigni? No? We're seriously overdue for a new version of "Pinocchio," one that takes the character back to his darker roots. Guillermo Del Toro and the Jim Henson company were working on a stop-motion version which seems to be in limbo at the moment. If that one doesn't pan out, Disney might want to consider going the live action route and seeing if they can find a good angle on reinterpreting what is arguably the best animated film they ever made.

"The Little Mermaid" - There are a lot of technical challenges that would come with this one, which is why "The Little Mermaid" hasn't been adapted as often as most of the other stories on this list. Movies involving water tend to get very expensive in a hurry. However, considering how far CGI has advanced, I think a new live action adaptation is very possible and has lots of potential. Think about how gorgeous those ocean scenes were in "Life of Pi." Also, keep in mind that Disney already produced a perfectly charming mermaid movie back in the 80s with only old fashioned special effects - Ron Howard's "Splash."

"Aladdin" - The biggest problem with doing a live action "Aladdin" is Disney's own discouraging failure at adapting the similarly themed "Prince of Persia" franchise a few years ago. Add likely issues with cultural appropriation, Orientalism, and stereotyping on top of that, and "Aladdin" starts to look like a potential minefield. However, the "Arabian Nights" stories have remained very popular, and everyone knows the "Aladdin" story. If Disney can get a big headliner to play the Genie of the Lamp, and make some genuine attempts at cultural sensitivity, I think the magic carpets and caves of wonder should do the rest.

"The Sword in the Stone" - There have been quite a few attempts at tackling the King Arthur legends recently, but I'm surprised that nobody has thought to take another shot at adapting "The Sword in the Stone," the first volume of T.H. White's "The Once and Future King." Disney made a fun, if significantly edited animated version in 1963, with young Arthur being tutored by a scatterbrained Merlin. With its lighter comedic tone, lots of transformations, talking animals, and the iconic magicians' duel, the original may not have been meant for children, but it's got all the earmarks of good material for a family flick.

"Peter Pan" - Disney has been getting a lot of mileage out of its "Tinkerbell" series, and there are plans for a live action version in the works. If that goes well, it could lead into a new adaptation of "Peter Pan." It's been a decade since the last major adaptation, P.J. Hogan's sorely underseen 2003 version, so I think we're due for another one. There are several "Peter Pan" related projects in various stages of development around Hollywood right now, including a darker revisionist one and an origin story for Peter and the Lost Boys. I can't think of any reason why Disney shouldn't look into revisiting Neverland too.

"The Black Cauldron" - By far the most obscure feature on this list, but I figure that now that Disney's managed to revitalize the Oz franchise, maybe they'll think about trying the Prydain Chronicles again too. Lloyd Alexander's five-book fantasy series was the source material for the disastrous 1985 animated feature. It was too dark and scary for that era, much like the "Return to Oz" movie that came out the same year. However, the darker sword and sorcery storyline and the zombies might work better now, especially in a live-action film that won't be mistaken as being a typical Disney cartoon, and just for kids.
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I went back and forth about whether or not to write these posts this year, but I figured that they do have some value, the same way that my "Least Anticipated" lists do. I like going back at the end of the year and seeing what met expectations and what didn't. And it's always good to take a good, hard look at where my movie-watching priorities are, and what's going into the decision making process when picking and choosing among new titles. The big question I suppose you're asking right now is, why wait until the beginning of March? Why didn't you write these lists two months ago when everyone else did? Well, because January and February are crap for new releases. Sure, I'll probably rent "Warm Bodies" and "Side Effects," but these aren't priorities. Also, the full year's release schedule still isn't close to being finalized - there was another round of date swapping just yesterday, but now everything through the summer is pretty much set, and it's after Sundance, so at least we've got a better picture of what's coming down the pipe.

I'm going to split these up into two posts, one for the big mainstream blockbusters, and one for the more highbrow pictures. Ten entries apiece. Here we go!

"Iron Man 3" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" - So much of my anticipation for these two sequels is pure hype and I know it. "Iron Man 2" was a disappointment, and there's no guarantee that "Iron Man 3" won't be more of the same. However, Shane Black is directing this time and he's got an awfully good track record, going all the way back to "Lethal Weapon." As for the new "Star Trek," there is the distinct possibility that the baddie that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing is actually Khan. Do I really need any other reason to be excited?

"Man of Steel" - I'm rooting for DC to finally get a Superman reboot right. They've got a lot of factors on their side, but a lot of others against them too. Their biggest liability is director Zack Snyder, whose films have been on a definite downward trajectory as of late. However, the cast looks solid, Christopher Nolan is heavily involved, and the trailers suggest that the filmmakers have a good angle on the origin story. The performance of "Man of Steel" is going to decide the fate of "Justice League," so this is a big one, one way or another.

"This is the End" and "The World's End" - The idea of spoofing the apocalypse appeals to me a lot after so many years of self-serious doom and gloom disaster epics. This year we're getting them in two different flavors. First, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, and their cohorts will be playing themselves getting into celebrity-cameo-studded hijinks during the end times in Los Angeles. Then in the fall, Edgar Wright will reteam with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for "The World's End," described as a pub crawl that coincides with a global apocalypse.

"Pacific Rim" - Guillermo Del Toro's back! And he's brought what looks an awful lot like a Japanese kaiju monster movie with him, involving giant mecha suits. Visions of "Godzilla" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" are dancing through my head after that teaser trailer. There are a lot of potentially interesting science fiction coming out this year, and I'm hoping that this one in particular will do well enough to raise some interest in other thematically related projects. And that it'll give Del Toro enough clout to finally make the projects he actually wants to make.

"Elysium" - Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to "District 9" will star Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in a science-fiction story we don't know very many details about, and hopefully it will stay that way. The preview images that have been released so far suggest another gritty, dystopian world and more pointed social commentary, but beyond that it's hard to say. I've also skimmed a plot synopsis that makes it sound a bit like "Battle Angel Alita," and if that turns out to be true then James Cameron has only himself to blame for dragging his feet on that project.

"Ender's Game" - Another possible disaster in the making. The novel is one of those science-fiction holy cows that was on every nerd's wish list to be turned into a feature film for several decades, and the potential for dashed hopes and major disappointment is considerable. There's already been some griping about how the child soldiers, lead by Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld, have been aged up significantly to lessen the shock of the combat. However, "Ender's Game" tells one hell of a story, and maybe - just maybe - they'll actually get it right.

"Frozen" - It's not shaping up to be a very good year for animated films, and the current slate is mostly dominated by spinoffs and sequels (I'm looking at you, PIXAR). The one feature I'm interested in is "Frozen," Disney's "Snow Queen" project that has been in development for decades. They're going to be following the template of "Tangled" and from what I've seen of the marketing materials so far, "Frozen" is going to be a major departure from the original fairy tale. That doesn't mean it can't still be a lot of fun, though, if all those changes work out.

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" - Oh yes. I may not have been thrilled with how "An Unexpected Journey" turned out, but I have been waiting to see the dragon Smaug on the big screen for as long as I can remember, as least as far back as when the original "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was in production and Peter Jackson first teased the possibility of doing a "Hobbit" movie. Also, most of the big action set pieces of "The Hobbit" will take place in "Desolation," which hopefully means less of the padding and the call-backs that made "Journey" such a slog.
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Lots of discussion going on today about the VFX protest at the Oscars last night, and the ire that was raised when the "Life of Pi" winners were cut off, midway through their impassioned plea on behalf of the struggling industry. There have been some great pieces written about the sad state of affairs. I particularly liked the one from Drew McWeeney over at Hitfix, who points out that Hollywood has become increasingly dependent on visual effects over the past decade.

So I thought I'd do a little exercise to see exactly how much impact those effects artists are having. I went down the list of the highest grossing films of all time and took out all the ones that depended heavily on CGI and visual effects sequences. This included all the animated films, and great chunk of the superhero and fantasy films. Anything with computer generated characters like "Lord of the Rings," "Avatar," and the "Harry Potter" movies were out. However I left action-adventure films that were largely built around stunts and more real-world thrills.

Many of these films still had a significant amount of effects work, but it was conceivable that you could make a similar modern James Bond without the CGI. Christopher Nolan's grittier, more realistic style also kept the latest Batman movies on the list. I went back and forth on "The Hunger Games," but decided that most of the CGI-heavy sequences could have been removed without affecting the movie much. But the "Twilight" movies? Those vampire and werewolf visuals were leaned on pretty heavily to make up for shortfalls in the writing. So out they go.

You would end up with a list of the highest grossing films of all time domestically that looked like this:

1. The Dark Knight
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. The Hunger Games
4. The Passion of the Christ
5. Forrest Gump
6. Skyfall
7. The Sixth Sense
8. Home Alone
9. Meet the Fockers
10. The Hangover

"The Dark Knight" is currently the fourth highest grossing film in the U.S. at the time of writing, having grossed over half a billion dollars, about $200 million shy of "Avatar," which is on top with $760 million. "The Hangover" is all the way down at #59 with $277 million. Of the Top 100, 75% of the highest grossing films could not exist without the contributions of VFX artists. The ratio gets even worse if you look at worldwide numbers.

1. Skyfall
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. The Dark Knight
4. The Da Vinci Code
5. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
6. The Hunger Games
7. Forrest Gump
8. The Sixth Sense
9. Fast Five
10. The Passion of the Christ

"Skyfall" is the seventh highest grossing film of all time and "The Passion of the Christ" is all the way down at #72. 82% of the Top 100 are heavily dependent on CGI. What's more, "Skyfall" has made $1.1 billion in global ticket sales, but that's less than half of the current leader, "Avatar," which generated a stunning $2.7 billion international box office. Hollywood has become increasingly reliant on the international box office to make up profits, and global audiences prefer action-adventure, fantasy, and animated films, which all need lots and lots of CGI.

For years we've been seeing the economics change and the value shift from stars and directors to brand names and ever-more impressive effects. It seems like the studios have been on a never-ending campaign to cut costs for years now, and animators and effects artists have never worked in a labor-friendly industry. I've heard a few horror stories first hand. I've got an animator in the family. And I've got friends in the industry, just trying to get by. However, it's getting to the point where the cutting may have gotten too deep and something is going to give.

Some morbid part of me wants to see what would happen if all the effects houses went on strike, and the studios were left scrambling with substandard artists and impossible deadlines that really were impossible this time. Would we see films with unfinished effects released to theaters? More delays? Part of me wonders if this is one of the contributing factors to all those films that got pushed back last year. Were post production woes responsible for the unprecedented amount of release date shuffling? Without VFX, would Hollywood pay attention to things like story and character for a change?

But that would be courting disaster. Hollywood makes all these effects-heavy films because they're popular and successful. Audiences love them, and taking them away would probably result in drastically lowered box offices revenues, meaning everyone would feel the hurt. No, it's in everyone's best interest if Hollywood makes nice with the VFX artists and they can figure some way to work things out. It's a complicated and messy situation, but one that's needed to be addressed for a long time.

Fingers crossed.
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Entries tagged with animation

"Despicable Me 2" - Minions Need Moms

Four Shorts By Spike Jonze

The 2015 Showdown Looms

If I Were At Comic-Con

Wait, the "Venture Bros" Season is Over Already?

Can You Reboot an Animated Film?

A Youtube Playlist

Everything You Need to Know About Mecha

"Aeon Flux" and "The Maxx"

Are the Disney Princesses a Problem?

A Trip to "Cars" Land

Trailers! Trailers! The Catching-Up Edition

2014 and 2015 Movies I Wanna See

"A Beautiful Day" Years in the Making

"Unico" and Childhood Movie Trauma

Doom Doom Doom

Let's Check in With "Archer"

New Disney Movies Based on the Old Disney Movies

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